Guy takes selfie with bear, America copies, then discovers original was fake

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RT 2014-10-30A terrifying selfie with a bear, taken by a backpacker, has seen the US go nuts over the dangerous pastime, snapping and Instagramming their own brushes with death. The one thing they didn’t know? The original selfie wasn’t even real.

“My faux bear selfie picture has gone viral! So many websites, newspapers and blogs have posted the picture. So funny,” Jacob Bean said in a subsequent Instagramm collage of stunned newspaper headlines, depicting his ‘horrified’ expression in the face of certain doom.

“NO ONE except NBC has asked to use the photography or checked the legitimacy of the photograph. This picture was photoshopped as a joke after my backpacking trip in May in the Smoky Mountain National Park because I kept saying I was going to get a selfie with a bear. I never saw a bear. So I made sure it happened!” – the rest of the post read.

- Now, the US Forest Service is very worried: it issued a statement appealing to Lake Tahoe visitors – the record-setting bear-selfie destination in California – warning them not to be tempted.

"People have been rushing up to the bears to take selfies and videos with them," Lisa Herron, a public affairs officer for the Lake Tahoe Basin said on Friday.

"- A bear will come and whole mobs of people will charge up to them to take photos."[...]